Opening segment to "Beacon"

Different writing this: Less adjectives. It lest the reader do more of the work.

Levi stripped off his clerical collar and tossed it on the dresser. He dropped his head and ran his fingers through short-cropped black hair. Shivers spangled across his scalp and down his spine. But to try to kill him, no one had touched him in centuries – except for her. He unfastened the top two buttons on his cassock and rubbed his throat, craining his neck like a man just relieved of a noose.

“AaaAH!” He groaned and dropped his forehead into his hands. Flattening his palms on the dresser top, he leaned forward, glaring at himself in the mirror.
“Well, Éogan,” he breathed and cocked his head, “what now?” Crowned with sweeping brows, his eyes were black with the luster of polished hematite.

“How do you avert tragedy this time… without getting yourself killed?” he growled. A strong widow’s peak and cowlick pointed down to his angular nose and full lips framed by a trim black beard. He sighed again as he cast about the room. “Best get on with it… I’ll wear the soutane,” he resolved aloud. “It may serve to calm him and it’s fitting enough, given I’m undertaking what may be my last mission of mercy.”

Slipping into a long black woolen peacoat, he killed the room lights and glided through the shadows of the house. Lofty crystal windows topped with stained glass cast the space in an eerie collage of color. He trembled with adrenaline, eyeing soggy snowflakes plunging from bloated clouds and anticipating the unavoidable confrontation with Michael.

He will pluck me to pieces… slllowly… one-limb-at-a-time…

Levi was small among those of his own clan: just six feet tall and two hundred pounds. Compared to Michael, and Michael’s son Paeter, he was but a runt. He made up for his diminutive proportions with towering intellect, telepathic command and experience. Born in the year 275, he was the factual patriarch of his clan, but he cared not a jot for titles. Having gone by many names in his time, Levi knew they meant nothing. What mattered was blood. Erinn was his blood.

…but I can’t just leave this process to nature, or Michael…

Michael Stuart had just stolen Erinn – and when she was on the very brink of birthing Levi’s reprieve. At the costs of centuries in time and many millions in dollars, The Speciation Project had created her. Levi’s own financial outlay had been enormous, but his emotional investment dwarfed that consideration.

…There’s too much at stake…

He hesitated at the door, reluctant to plunge into the cold, dreading facing Michael. Erinn’s visage crystalized in his mind and he felt again the warmth of her presence, her guileless vulnerability, her courageous ardor. She was to him “a vessel of The Good”.

“I must go,” he resolved aloud and opened the door.

As he watched the preparation of the helicopter, he agonized over how to handle Michael. He’d known and befriended him under another name centuries before. Levi had looked very different then, and he’d intentionally changed his accent and mannerisms with the same fluid dexterity that had safeguarded his longevity. The true vampyre was as much chameleon as it was predator, but there were so few true vampyres left. Erinn looked to be the breakthrough promising their next rebound, but she had a condition Levi regarded as “an endearing, but life-threatening, throwback”. He’d dubbed her “Dead Heroic” – a moniker he’d intended to make a point: She was rash.

“Dead heroes do not champion principles, my dear,” he had admonished her. “Living is harder than dying and a principle worth killing or dying for is best served by living in its tribute.”